Balmorra

She'd been silent the whole way to Balmorra. Corso kept glancing over at her, but she couldn't find the words to explain what was going on in her head. It wasn't rational or even reasonable, but she felt like going to Balmorra was painful. She hadn't been there when Jenra had been killed, but this place, it had murdered her to Ryli's way of thinking. Her thoughts were black as they landed and the two of them made their way down the ramp.

Sobrik had been taken from the Imperials, but all the buildings still had that cold, crisp, snooty feel that Ryli always thought of when she thought Empire. The air was warm though and she took a moment to shrug her jacket off. Corso quietly took both of their jackets back on board and then palmed the lock as he rejoined her.

Ryli was practically shaking, but she marched over to the speeder vendor and dug credits out of her back pocket. As she waited for the speeder, she felt Corso's hand drift soothingly into hers as he pulled her hand up and kissed it softly. This moment felt too brutal that something as sweet as that kiss could exist, but she let him, her eyes meeting his as she tried to smile.

They climbed onto the speeder together and she drove it as fast as she could out of town and into the wide open, past the outposts and up hills to ride along mountain paths. It was a beautiful planet, the parts that weren't recovering from the war. After an hour, she pulled up beside a series of marked gravestones and stopped the speeder.

The engine cutting out made the silence of the area even more startling. Far away, a bird called out and Ryli's hand stroked down the knife in her bicep sheath slowly, hypnotically. She could sense Corso watching her, but this moment was hers, this pain was not to be brushed away or comforted out of her. She needed to feel it.

Her time as a torturer should made her immune to death, since she'd brought it on so many, but in this moment, death felt like something very far from what she understood. It was true that the light in people's eyes died, but what they didn't tell you was how the light reflected off of dead eyes. Sometimes made you think they were still alive. Jenra was buried here, another casualty in the war. She'd committed suicide, in some form of how Ryli processed it.

A warm, gentle rain began, but Ryli didn't move from where she was kneeling on the ground. She might have been crying; she actually wasn't sure, but for a moment of perfect understanding, the planet heard her pain and answered with rain.

Slowly, she got to her feet with no idea of how long she'd been kneeling there. Everything felt too bright, too sensitive and yet, she felt empty. Corso tried to get on the front of the speeder and she shoved at him. "No, I want to drive," she said numbly.

They didn't make it far before she'd pulled the speeder over and was stumbling off of it, landing on the wet earth on her hands and knees, tears flowing hard and fast from her eyes. There was nothing but land and mountain as far as she could see, but her heart was too sick to see it.

Corso's arms wrapped around her and he gathered her up against him. She could feel the muscles along them as the rain plastered his shirt to him. It was his strength that he shared with her, his love for her and she thought that maybe, it was okay to take comfort in someone else, even if they weren't in the same pain as you were. The hard planes of his chest beneath the wet fabric were easily outlined as they sat there for a moment. It suddenly wasn't enough.

"Make love to me," she murmured to Corso, sitting up to take his face in her hands. "Take this away." There had been nothing romantic about the entire trip, so she wasn't shocked when he hesitated. In that moment though, she wanted comfort, wanted to feel like she was alive. The rain beat down on them both for a moment and then Corso leaned forward gently and put his lips on hers. The electricity that usually followed his kisses felt like it licked her veins with molten lava and the way the wet rain dripped down his hair and onto her skin, the way they had to tilt their heads to be able to kiss and not drown, she wanted more.

His thoughts followed hers as he pulled his soaked shirt off and tossed it to the side. He took a moment to graze his hands over the sopping cotton that covered her, pausing at where the fabric had tightened at her hips before he peeled it back off her skin and over her head. The rain immediately ran down over both of them and Ryli took a moment to be thankful that he hadn't protested where they were. She needed this, here and now.

Her hands slid over his chest, brushing water, causing ripples down his torso and she felt him shudder. The horror of loss was being translated into a desperate need for life, a need to feel again and she felt the moment he let himself go. His hands dug into her pants, practically ripping them off, pulling them by the cuffs. She was pressed back against the soft, damp earth, feeling small rocks against her back, but his mouth was back on hers and the rain was rolling down his back, over her fingertips. She could feel his hands moving at his waist, but she was clutching his back, her hands sliding over wet skin as they tried to get a better grip.

It was impossible to stay in any position as the rain made them both slippery. Then, their whole bodies were sliding together wetly and she could feel every raindrop on her skin, making blood come to the surface as she felt like a bundle of nerve endings, each one of them alive and awake.

Corso hesitated, breathing hard and then looked directly into her eyes as he pushed inside of her. Her whole body arched up, her mouth open as she swallowed rain, her eyes closed. There was nothing but this, nothing but life right now and as he moved, shoving her into the mud as she tried to brace enough to push back against him, she felt whole.

She hadn't even been aware of how he'd reacted to her, but as he thrust into her, he wrapped his arms around her back, lifting her slightly off the ground, murmuring about how he loved her, how beautiful she was, in that half-gasping voice he got when he couldn't think straight. Every movement inside of her was as slick as their skin was and the sensation of every part of her being gliding against, was almost too much to bear.

Her thigh gliding along his skin even more smoothly than normal, the rain making his hands slip on her, making her hard to hold, but she was there, with him. "I love you, Corso," she murmured before her head tilted back, the rain falling over her face gently as she felt every inch of her body for one brief moment turn to fire and the relief of her climax drove her against him as his face buried in her hair, his arms still around her. The rain poured down over them as they gradually stilled together.

Corso kissed her then, not moving, just his lips on hers for a brief, perfect moment. She tensed as his slid out of her to lay panting, face up on the ground beside her. He put his hand over his face to block the rain and then tilted his head to smile at her. "Feel better?" he asked softly.

The gentle patter of rain along her skin, already raw from the lovemaking made her lazy and Ryli leaned forward to kiss him again. She spared a brief thought for having to pull on wet, muddy clothes over her wet, muddy body and how it would look when they drove back into Sobrik, but at that moment, she could have cared less. "Much," she answered him.

A few minutes more and she sighed, sitting up and looking around for her clothing. After a beat, Corso grabbed his shirt and used it to clean the mud off her back and then off of both of their legs. As he knelt down, she caught his chin in her hand for a moment. "Thank you," she said softly. He nodded and finished cleaning them both off the best he could. They both pulled pants on and helped each other get the clinging shirts back on, giggling while they did so.

As she swung her leg over the speeder, Ryli looked back at where they'd come from. Her life went on and those she missed or left behind weren't further than her memories. She'd found love and in it, she could find the echoes of all the love she'd ever known.